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Venality is the noun for being venal: the condition of a person or a system whose power and decisions can be bought with money. You use it when you want to name the problem as a whole rather than accuse one person — 'the venality of the old regime', 'widespread venality in the customs service', 'he wrote about the venality of the courts'. Because it names a general state, it appears in the same places venal does: history writing, journalism, political analysis, formal complaint. It is uncountable, so no 'a venality' and no plural. Like venal, it has a milder literary use meaning 'the habit of doing things purely for money' — the venality of a writer who will praise anything for a fee. In everyday speech almost nobody says it; people say 'corruption'. Choosing venality over corruption puts the stress on the buying and selling — the price tag — rather than on the crime.
貪贓(的風氣)、可被收買的性質、賣官鬻爵的腐敗(正式書面語)
原始詞典資料1 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法,原文照列,我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的;有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
venalitynoun/vɪˈnælɪti/
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The fact or state of being for sale, especially with reference to bribes or corruption.
- 1785, The Times, 17 Jan 1785, p.1 col. B As your spirited paper has declared war, not only against venality and despotism, but was intended to correct follies and abuses in private life, I hope the following will come within its useful plan.
資料來源:英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary(CC BY-SA 4.0)。 原文照列,未經改寫。